more fun e-veneer

That store “Reverse Garbage” keeps having these fun manufactured-wood products,including “eveneer”. I just cannot help bringing home the samples, for 50 cents each.

Around the house, I found a light-brown wood, similar to the stripes .. and it’s
“Queensland Black Wattle”. I’d been wanting to do a bridle-joined top for a while, here was the opportunity.Happy with the result.M&Ts in the base .. umm .. not quite so matching to the top join as I’d hoped.But at least it wont be falling apart ! Steps below explain why.

Steps:1) cut 6mm plywood sides, top bottom. cut tenon on bottom edges of sides, & on top.2) veneer inside Not that easy: had a problem with Rediseal under water-based poly,
.. several goes at fixing it .. what finally worked was a good scrub with lacquer thinner,
I think it softened the Rediseal & let the next coat stick. And yes there was 2 days of
drying before the water-based poly ! I’m not that silly.3) butt-join the 4 sides, let glue dry a day, drill skew and insert pegs, let glue dry a day.
Sometimes the pegs are toothpicks, sometimes I make matching ones. Or harder ones.4) sand off pegs. cut veneer 1-2mm oversize, and because box is longer than width,
organise pieces into some order so that stripes aren’t always repeating, but seem random.5 or meanwhile) cut solid-wood for top and bottom edges,
also 1-2mm strips for top edges of sides;
cut bridle joins on saw,
cut mortises for top,
saw & rout decorative M&Ts in bottom ends,
rout stopped mortises for sides.
At various stages, try-fit and adjust if needed.6) glue up 4 sides of base, with a bottom.7) apply veneer to ends of box by fitting sides-assemble to base-assembly and
pushing the veneer against the base. separate base & sides when veneer doesn’t skate.8) let glue dry, trim 3 edges. sand ends. This is why you don’t want the bottom & sides glued:
too hard to sand if assembled.9) Veneer long sides of box also by butting veneer against base.10) trim rest of veneer, again on 3 edges of each long-side. sand all sides11 or meanwhile) veneer top, trim & sand, rechecking fit to top-edges. Need it precise.12) put 1-2mm strips of your hardwood on tops of box-sides. Is it obvious or not that
you put a straight & clean edge flush with the inside, so you don’t have to sand it after,
and leave an overlap on the outside-edges because you can trim the outside.12) Apply at least 1 coat of water-based poly to base-assembly, sides-assembly,
non-glue surfaces of top-edges and top-panel.13) drill skew-holes thru mortise where the sides are about to fit,
then glue sides-assembly into base-assembly. After glue dries, drill thru those
skew-holes from the bottom and into the plywood sides. Glue in pegs.14) well I left this til so late, but it was possibly a mistake: veneer inside of top panel.
I left it because I was going to secure the lid-handle all the way thru the panel.
But it was a bad idea because the top-panel veneered on 1 side only warped ..
which with my top-edge mortises a little slack, I had to glue the long-edges
first, and stick in a little scrap of veneer (real wood veneer, being harder) to
hold the panel flat and precisely flush to the edges all around.14 or meanwhile) glue up 4 top-edges and top-panel.15) make a handle, glue it on with pegs.
Early in the design I had in mind to make the long rod of stripey-veneer around
a smaller dowel. But that would mean I’d have to do something with the
ends, to make them look like the rod was 1 solid piece; something like: glue up
many tiny scraps of the veneer, until you have 12mm round, then cut that to
resemble endgrain (No Way I’m using a piece of cross-grain on ends !).
Anyway, that got to be too much work, so I just rounded off a piece of Wattle
as the handle. If anyone has read this far, and thinks a stripey handle would
have looked good, well, keep it to yourself. I don’t want to have to swear.16) More finish coats if necessary. Or if gluey fingerprints appeared.

Whoo boy, I didn’t expect to be writing this story for an hour +. Kept having togo back and insert steps I forgot. No wonder it took weeks to make .. though a lot waswaiting for glue or finish to dry. And I had 4 different boxes on the go, so it’s notas if I went upstairs for a nap.

Oh, I meant to point out: the box-bottom is plain plywood on the underside,and also on the inside ! then padding & satin inserted.
not my preferred practice, BUT when I gave away some boxes for golf trophies last month, one of the ladies made disappointed noises about her box not having a cushion .. and it was because her box has a bottom of the same nice wood asthe rest of the box, while the cushioned one had something else, maybe even plywood,since I didn’t have enough fiddlewood. Anyway, the lesson is that the ladies LIKE a“cushion”. Well, I guess I can be okay with skipping the extra sanding & finishing.